So I got up at 4AM this morning to go up to Foster beach and do the T2 mock triathlon. (Side note: become a triathlete, and you too will see more 4AM mornings in a single season than you ever had in your entire life up until that point. Even as a sysadmin. Scary thought!) I got up, threw my stuff together, ate something random for breakfast, checked my bike tires’ air pressure and topped them off, and went outside to load up the car. Everything was great, until I had driven about 50 yards through the parking deck and thought, what is that *fwap* noise coming in the windows? Oh crap, my right front tire was low last time I drove… set the parking brake and jumped out, and sure enough, that tire was flat as a pancake. So I drove slowly (I got passed by a bicyclist on State street – ha, probably the first time that’s happened to that cyclist) to the nearest service station and filled it back up and checked my other tires, which, if nothing else, was relatively painless and did give me an excuse to get a coffee… though that is not the story I was going to tell you about today.

Anyways, I went to Foster Beach and found the T2 folks and we all completely rocked everything the hell right out, I did my mile swim and my baby bike ride (5 point something miles – wee bitty baby bike ride!) and my 5k up and down the lakefront, and THEN WE TOTALLY GOT FINISHER’S MEDALS, WHICH WAS AN AWESOME FABULOUS SURPRISE AND MINE IS TOTALLY ALREADY TACKED UP ON THE WALL BECAUSE THAT IS HOW MUCH I LOVE IT, and then we were all slowly trickling out and I talked to S. briefly about our plans for tomorrow — because we signed up for a non-mock tri, a sprint distance triathlon in Wauconda tomorrow morning, which will be fun except that I didn’t realize, when signing up, that Steelhead was the same day and that means I am going to be totally late getting over there to cheer on my T2 teammates and my buddy L., but anyways — and then I decided that since we were going to be going straight from Wauconda to Michigan, I was going to go over to Jewel and buy some bottled water and stuff. Because I had the car I wasn’t going to bother to go home and change first, so I actually — hahaha, I still can’t believe this part — went to Jewel still in my soggy tri shorts and sweaty bike jersey and I had no purse or anything so I just stuffed my wallet up my shorts leg (which, if you haven’t worn bike shorts, is a completely valid alternative to a pocket – for lip balms or maybe a gel packet or something. A wallet might have been pushing the boundaries a little more than normal) and grabbed a cart and went into Jewel.

This is how the trip started: I am not hungry. I am going to grab a flat of water and some bananas or something. Ok, cool. Grab cart. First aisle, eggs and frozen stuff. GOD IT’S COLD. Do I need eggs? NO! Do I need cheese? YEAH OKAY, GRAB IT AND GO. Do I need — NO! IT’S TOO COLD IN THIS AISLE! GO! … walk into snacky aisle. I should get some pretzels. Pretzels are valid post-race snacks. They have salt. WHAT KIND OF PRETZELS? THERE ARE TOO MANY! I AM CONFUSED BY CHOICES! think…think… after the race Thursday, N. had some pretzels…they were sticks! OKAY! PRETZEL STICKS IT IS! GOD IT’S COLD! And now I’m getting kind of hungry. Hey, I got some cheese back there. I need crackers. Water crackers… yeah. I want rosemary. I WANT ROSEMARY WATER BISCUITS. WHERE IS THE ROSEMARY?! DAMMIT JEWEL! Settle for sesame water crackers. Eye other snackies… decide that no, chips are not valid post-race snackies the same way pretzels are. Successfully depart snacky aisle. Pass peanut butter aisle… think, oh, peanut butter is totally post-race food! I totally saw the T2 marathoners eating peanut butter after their 14 mile run! Find organic creamy peanut butter and think… you know what goes with peanut butter? APPLES go with peanut butter. I should get some apples. Oh, and do I need coffee? I don’t know. Let me see if coffee is on sale… wander up coffee aisle, discover coffee is not on sale, decide to live dangerously. Then pass a Gatorade display! OH HEY, my favorite flavor! On sale! AWESOME! GIVE ME 3 8-PACKS OF IT! BECAUSE I’M TOTALLY THIRSTY NOW, I WANT TO DRINK IT ALL! RIGHT! NOW! … oh hey, there’s water. Ok, grab some water. On to the produce aisle. APPLES! APPLES ARE DELICIOUS! Except the red delicious kind, which are gross, so delicious is a lie, but whatever. Gala apples. I’m sharing, so how many should I get … 8! 8 seems like a totally reasonable number of apples to buy! I WILL BE SHARING! Also, I’m hungry. Oh, bananas. Ok, grab some bananas… OH APRICOTS, APRICOTS ARE MY FAAAAAAVORITE… I AM BUYING 8..NO, TEN! TEN! THEY’RE VERY SMALL! AND I WILL EAT 4 OF THEM AS SOON AS I GET HOME! APRICOTS APRICOTS APRICOTS! GOD I’M HUNGRY! oh, strawberries are on sale, and they’re not even all picked over. I should get some strawberries for my morning smoothies, I’m running low… 4 boxes of strawberries seems like a totally reasonable amount of strawberries… ok OH HEY LOOK, IT’S THE GOOD CHEESE. MMMMMMMM. I WANT BRIE! BRIE! FOR MY CRACKERS! Which would have been better if they were rosemary, stupid Jewel. But brie is still yummy… oh hey look, stilton! Stilton with cranberries! THAT SOUNDS DELICIOUS TOO! I AM GOING TO GET THAT TOO! TO HAVE WITH MY BRIE! AND MY CRACKERS! Except do I have enough crackers? Maybe I should look at bread. MAYBE THEY HAVE ROSEMARY BREAD! No… NO ROSEMARY!?!?!? DAMMIT JEWEL! WHAT IS YOUR BEEF WITH ROSEMARY?!?! … ok… no bread. Bread is boring without rosemary… oh HEY, they have BAGEL CHIPS! BAGEL CHIPS WITH SALT ARE TOTALLY LEGITIMATE POST-RACE FOOD, BECAUSE THEY HAVE SALT! … oh jeez, I have a cart full of gatorade, random fruit, cheese, and pretzels… this is not grocery shopping like normal people do it. I got progressively hungrier as I went through the store and I also got progressively more caps-lock impulse shopper… OH SHIT, ALL THOSE PSYCHOLOGISTS WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG!

Oh well. Fuck it. Those apricots are gonna be DELICIOUS, man. Maybe I’ll eat them with some stilton on water crackers!